I Went To Subway Today…

Got done working and wanted to pick something up for dinner. We haven’t had Subway in a while, so that’s where I went. I could’ve stopped at any of the half dozen or so that were on my way home, but for whatever reason I decided to go to the one nearest my home. I’ve been there a few times in the past and it has always been good, so why change it up?

I’m now driving for Lyft, and my last ride was a long one, so I had to pee pretty bad. When I went into Subway, there was a customer being helped, so I walked past her to the bathroom. Before I could open the door, the employee said the bathrooms were out of order. Fine.

The customer being helped was getting her sandwich toasted, so the employee asked what I wanted. I really can’t stand when they start making my order before the person in front of me is done, because when their sandwich comes out of the toaster, my order is put on hold so their order can be finished. But it is what it is, so I began giving her my order. Of course the other customer’s sandwich was done being toasted, so my order was put on hold.

That’s when the owner came over to help me. I’m so honored he took time out of his busy day to give me terrible service. I wasn’t in a hurry, and would’ve happily waited for the girl to finish my order, but we don’t always get what we want, right?

Thanks, Rolling Stones.

Movie Review: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

This past Saturday my wife and I had a date day. We don’t do that much anymore, so it was a good thing. We planned on seeing the new Ghostbusters movie, which was also our first theater movie in many years. We also planned on eating at a Mexican restaurant down the street from us, which we both love, after the movie.

We checked our favorite theater, Xscape, but found it had closed, which upset us. So we decided to go to the theater down the road from us, which is right across the street from the Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately, it’s an AMC theater.

I’ve been in three of them now, and they all suck, but the one near us is the worst of the three.

Deleting Facebook

I realized Facebook sucked a while back. I’ve taken time off for long stretches of time before, and when I’d go back to just kind of see what’s going on, I would be quickly reminded why I left in the first place. I’ve had that account for a long time. I think I first joined in 2011.

Recently I deleted it completely, because I had no use for it. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it, either, because who would’ve given a shit? Nobody, really. The only people I used it to talk to, which was on Messenger, not Facebook, also had my phone number and/or email address. They could get ahold of me if they needed to.

Since I deleted it, nobody has contacted me, which tells me everything I needed to know about having a Facebook account in the first place.

A Skyline Chili Theme

Here around the Cincinnati area, we have Cincinnati chili. You may have heard of it. I’m not entirely sure where it all started, and I don’t feel like doing any research at all, but I’m pretty sure Empress Chili was the first. Maybe it was Skyline Chili. Regardless, it started from Greek immigrants who took a recipe from their homeland and started making and serving it here in Cincinnati around the 1920s. Ironically, Cincinnati style chili isn’t found anywhere in Greece. Even Greek people are like “WTF is this shit? I didn’t sign off on this.”

It’s hit or miss to outsiders, but to locals it’s all the rage. Sure, some here don’t like it, but they’re wrong and stupid.

It’s my favorite food. I say that like I don’t have dozens of other favorite foods. But Skyline Chili, or really any Cincinnati chili, I can eat every day forever, and not get sick of it. I once got a job at Skyline Chili just so I could eat it every day. Plus I needed a job, I guess. I definitely didn’t do it for the money. My paychecks were literally just enough to fill my gas tank so I could get to and from work. Seriously.

But that’s okay, cause that location burned down. They rebuilt it, but whatever.

There are many mom and pop diners that sell their own recipes, like Camp Washington Chili, Pleasant Ridge Chili, and Blue Ash Chili, but there are a couple of chain restaurants that are all over here. Empress was one of them, and possibly the first, but as far as I know they’re all gone now. It was delicious. Skyline is basically the biggest one, and there’s also Gold Star Chili. Among Cincinnatians, there is a longstanding debate on who has the best. Skyline? Gold Star? Camp Washington Chili? Pleasant Ridge Chili? Blue Ash Chili is honestly probably my favorite, but what do I know?

This isn’t about any of them. Just Skyline.

There’s an old song by The Platters called “Twilight Time.” Skyline used that for their jingle, modified, of course.

Selling Your Car With Peddle – A Review *UPDATED*

The minivan we got in 2020, a month before the pandemic happened, finally died on us on Christmas of ’22. We haven’t had a working car since, up until last week when we bought a new car. We’ve gone this last year without being able to leave the house unless we had a ride. It sucked.

Now that we have a new car, we have to get rid of the van. There’s a whole other story as to why we’re going this route, but I’ll stick with this for now. I had been seeing Peddle advertised, and at one point I tried to sign up to have them take our van, but a question on the app kept me from doing it. It asked if the battery was good and the car could be started. I said no, and it said I had to replace the battery. That was a month ago, before we got our new car.

Now that we have the new car, we have to park it on the street because our van is taking up our parking pad in front of our home. The park we live in doesn’t allow on-street parking, and the timing was perfect, because the old manager of the park (literally) retired, and we have a new manager. She immediately let the park know that if they have cars on the street, they’ll be towed. The previous manager told us that, but never went through with it, like with everything else, and everyone kept parking on the street.

I found another service called The Clunker Junker, and began filling out their app to come get the van. Immediately, and I mean immediately, I began getting emails from them and Peddle. Apparently Clunker Junker is an affiliate of Peddle. I had no idea, nor do I know why Peddle needs affiliates. Especially if, when an affiliate is contacted, Peddle jumps right in and takes over. No point in that. It seems scammy.

Not only did I get a ton of emails while still trying to fill out the initial application, but I also began getting text messages. To put it bluntly, they spammed the fuck out of me before I could finish the application.

A Quick Update

Yeah, I’ve been gone again. Still dealing with depression, but I’m getting better. I think about writing shit all the time, but never come here to do it. Hopefully I can get back into it regularly again soon, but again, I’m not holding my breath, and you shouldn’t either. I’m sure you’re beyond it.

I just noticed the last thing I wrote about disability and I thought I’d update that.

I finally got something in the mail, right after I posted that post. Social Security wanted to know all the info of the last places I worked in all of 2022 and 2023. I didn’t work at all in 2023, and only had a few nothing jobs in 2022, but I didn’t have any of the info they wanted, and I couldn’t get it. One of the places I worked, Meijer, was impossible to get ahold of for the info. I had to leave a voicemail with the person who could get me that info, and I never heard back.

Never mind that SSI wanted the info back 15 days from the date on the letter, and I got the letter with 7 days left to get the info.

So I called my local branch again, and finally got to talk to someone. I told him I wanted to cancel my application and told him why. He said he’d send out the forms I had to sign to cancel the application. Guess when I got those forms in the mail.

The next day.

They were more than happy to let me cancel it. They didn’t want to give me disability, which I’ve known the whole time I’ve been trying to get it. Because I am disabled, and helping the disabled is NOT what they do. It’s just the name they have.

And when I was telling the guy on the phone I wanted to cancel and why, he didn’t try to stop me or help me or anything. I’m sure after he hung up the phone with me he went around the office high fiving people. He probably got a bonus.

The NFL Is Ruining The NFL

I’m not sure if this was a widespread decision or if it was just locally, but around 20 years ago, the Reds stopped being aired on regular broadcast TV, and was then shown exclusively on cable. That was the same exact moment I stopped watching the Reds play, and since they were really the only team I cared about, and I didn’t really care much for them anyway, I quit watching baseball all together.

For the last few years, the NFL has been trying to achieve the same thing, only amped up a few notches.

Yes, the NFL is still shown primarily on broadcast TV, which I appreciate. However, I can’t watch regular broadcast TV, because even with a high-priced digital antenna (or low-priced, none work), I can’t pick up any TV where I live. But I have great internet. So of course everything I watch is available to me through streaming.

The problem there is, there are far too many streaming options now, and it’s more expensive to do streaming than it ever was for cable. Spectrum has completely ruined their cable service, which we found out a couple years ago, so our next best bet was to get a streaming cable option, such as the stuff you find with Hulu TV, YouTube TV, Sling, or the other 80,000,000 options. And those all cost as much as cable.

At least those all offer more bang for your buck than Spectrum does, but they’re still too expensive for my wallet.

Contacting Social Security

I’ve been fighting for disability for almost a decade. Every time I’ve applied or appealed, it wasn’t long before I got my response from them, which obviously has been all denials.

This most recent time I applied was August 18, 2022, and I applied online. No lawyer this time. I tried that once and he didn’t do shit for me.

I’ve been told by doctors and therapists that I’m disabled, and in 2020 during the pandemic, my health insurance at the time sent me a letter telling me I qualified for disability.

So when I applied this time, I thought I had a good chance of getting it, finally, but I’m not getting my hopes up. I know how they operate.

Not very well.

Google Discovery Sucks

I’m assuming all Android phones have this media app, Google Discovery, that can be enabled on home screens. I’ve had it on my last couple of phones, and I use it every day. It’s how I get my news.

For those who don’t know, or don’t use it, if used, it shows up on the home screen as one of the home screen pages, typically as the first page to the left, though I think you can put it wherever you want, and it’s a list of news articles from all over the web. You can customize it to see whatever suits your taste.

And it absolutely sucks.

It’s also not all “news” sites, it includes anything published online, so I get a ton of terrible blog articles in there as well, and I have to weed out what I want or don’t want to see, regularly. It also shows me local news from places I don’t live. Great.

It lists about 60 different things at a time. When you get to the bottom of the list, there’s a link to show you more news, but it takes you away from the app and to a Google News page that isn’t set up like the app at all. To refresh the app, you have to scroll all the way back to the top, which is a pain, but it’s better than loading up the Google News site. A button at the bottom to refresh the feed, or even to just take you back to the top so you can refresh it yourself would be great, but no.

If you don’t want to see a website from appearing, you have the option to tell the app to never show you content from that site again. Sometimes it works. Lately, for me, it hasn’t.

Product Review: R&M Magic Vapes

I am a vaper, and I’m not having THAT discussion right now. Maybe later.

I’ve been smoking on Mr. Fog Switch’s for a while, and honestly the only reason I buy those is because of how long they last. I’m regularly trying new things because I don’t really care for them that much.

I need them to last a while because I can’t drive right now, and I don’t get many chances to go to the store to buy this stuff. So when I do go, I have to buy enough to last me a week or more. Typically I can get through with 3 Mr. Fog’s. I’d prefer to smoke Elf Bar, or whatever they changed their name to recently, but they don’t last as long.

A vape shop opened near me last year, I believe, and they have the best prices, so I try to go there if I can. For example, the gas station down the street from me sells Mr. Fog for $21 each. I can walk to that station if I have to, so it’s great for convenience. The vape shop I like to go to is a 20 minute drive away, but they sell Mr. Fog for $15 each. I can get 3 there for the price of 2 at the gas station.

It was in this vape shop a couple weeks ago when they recommended a “new” vape called R&M Magic. It boasted 9000 hits. Mr. Fog Switch have 5500. The Magic also cost $10 more. It’s a risky gamble, cause what if I don’t like it?